Shackles per se are well known items of chandlery and marine hardware and are frequently made from metallic materials chosen to withstand the corrosive nature of a marine environment. It is a preferred requirement that shackles designed for use with both yachts and larger displacement seagoing vessels, should include a swivel connection so as to permit relative angular displacement between items releasably connected by the shackle. To this end, it is common practice for a shackle to include a swivel eye component which is rotatably connected to a releasable latch component. The releasable latch component usually comprises two members, namely, a first member which constitutes a body and which carries both the swivel eye component and a hinged latch member of the releasable latch component. The hinged latch member may be held in a closed position by means of a spring biassed plunger housed in the body and engageable in a hole formed in the hinged latch member.
Such known shackles are well tried and accepted pieces of marine hardware but, since they are made from metallic materials they are necessarily relatively heavy. It is an object of the present invention to provide a shackle which possesses all the advantages of the above and briefly described metallic swivel/releasable latch shackle but which is lighter in weight, which overcomes the necessity of a swivel eye and which will withstand the corrosive nature of a marine environment.